Your account, your subscription, and what each tier unlocks. Create an account with email or Google, start on the Free tier, and upgrade when you're ready. Billing runs through Stripe, and you can cancel anytime.
What you'll learn
- How to create an account and sign in
- How the automatic 14-day Pro trial on signup works
- What the Free, Pro, and Band tiers include
- How pricing works (monthly and annual billing)
- How to upgrade, manage your subscription, and cancel
- Where to find your account details in the app
- How your data syncs across devices
The previous chapter covered collaboration: sharing songs, roles, and sync. This chapter is about the account that holds it all together. Your account is what connects your songs across devices, gates the features available to you, and manages your subscription.
17.1 Creating an account
Song Cage offers two ways to create an account:
Email and password
On the sign-up page, enter your email address and choose a password (minimum 8 characters). You'll confirm the password, and the account is created. No email verification step blocks you from using the app immediately.
Click Continue with Google on the sign-in or sign-up page. Song Cage redirects to Google's authentication page (a full-page redirect, not a popup). After you authorize, you're redirected back and signed in. If you don't have an account yet, one is created automatically using your Google email.
Both methods result in the same kind of account. You can sign in with whichever method you used to create it.
17.2 Signing in
The sign-in page shows an email/password form and a Continue with Google button. Below the form, links take you to password reset and sign-up.
If you've forgotten your password, click Reset password. Enter your email address, and Song Cage sends a recovery link. Click the link in the email, set a new password, and you're back in.
17.3 The three tiers
Every new account starts with a 14-day Pro trial — full Pro features automatically, no credit card required. After the trial, you stay on Free, which lets you keep editing every song you made during the trial and adds two paid upgrades (Pro and Band) when you're ready for more.
All tiers share the same core songwriting tools. The differences are in how many new songs you can create after the trial, whether you can export, and whether you can collaborate with editors.
The 14-day Pro trial
When you sign up, you immediately get 14 days of full Pro features. No card needed, nothing to claim. You can:
- Create as many songs as you want
- Edit any song without restriction
- Export PDF chord sheets and MIDI files freely
- Use every feature on every plan
When the 14 days are up, your account quietly transitions to Free. No song is ever deleted. What changes is which songs you can edit.
Free
After your trial ends — or any time you choose — you're on Free. The Free tier follows a simple rule: your most recently edited song stays fully editable. Every other song goes read-only.
You can always view any read-only song (scroll through chords, lyrics, sections), but editing, playback, and export require Pro. The active editable song is whichever you most recently touched. If you delete the active song, the next-most-recent becomes active.
What's included on Free:
- One active song, fully editable. Whichever song you last edited. Unlimited sections, chord blocks, voicings, word tools, audio recording, playback — all the same features as during the trial.
- All other songs viewable. Open them, scroll through them, see your work. Editing them requires Pro.
- Full chord palette. Diatonic, borrowed, and secondary dominant chords in every key and mode.
- All voicings. Browse and select guitar and piano voicings, including capo and inversions.
- Modulation panel. Pivot chord routes between any two keys.
- All Word Tools. Rhymes, near rhymes, synonyms, semantic drift, and Word Collider.
- Audio recording on the active song. Record voice memos and ideas while you're editing.
What Free doesn't include: editing or playing back any song other than the active one, and PDF/MIDI export on any song. Those are Pro features.
Pro
The Pro tier lifts the new-song cap and adds export and basic sharing:
- Unlimited songs. No cap on how many new songs you create.
- PDF chord sheet export. Generate printable A4 chord sheets with voicing diagrams (Chapter 14).
- MIDI export. Export chord and melody tracks as a standard MIDI file (Chapter 14).
- View-only share links. Generate a link that gives someone read-only access to your song (Chapter 16).
Band
The Band tier adds everything in Pro plus full collaboration:
- Editor share links. Generate links that grant editing access, not just viewing.
- Email invitations. Invite collaborators by email directly from the Share dialog.
- Up to 5 editors per song. Multiple people can edit the same song, with changes syncing across devices.
- Manage collaborator roles. Change a collaborator between editor and viewer, or revoke access entirely.
Chapter 16 covers collaboration features in detail.
17.4 Pricing
Song Cage offers monthly and annual billing. Annual billing saves over 30%.
| Monthly | Annual | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Pro | $12/month | $8/month ($96/year) |
| Band | $20/month | $14/month ($168/year) |
There are no hidden fees, no usage-based charges, and no overage costs. You can cancel anytime.
17.5 Upgrading
While your Pro trial is active, a small badge in the toolbar shows how many days are left. Click it any time to open the pricing dialog and convert your trial into a paid subscription early — useful if you're already sure you want Pro and don't want the trial reminder emails.
After your trial, you'll see an Upgrade to Pro option in the user menu. Hitting a feature gate — creating a second song on Free, or clicking an export button — also opens the pricing dialog with the three tiers side by side.
Click Get Pro or Get Band to start the checkout flow. Song Cage redirects you to a Stripe checkout page where you enter your payment details. After checkout completes, you're redirected back to the app and your new tier is active immediately.
The entire process happens through Stripe. Song Cage does not store your credit card number or payment details.
17.6 Managing your subscription
Once you have an active Pro or Band subscription, the user menu shows Manage subscription. Clicking it opens the Stripe billing portal, where you can:
- Switch billing cycle. Move between monthly and annual billing.
- Upgrade or downgrade. Move between Pro and Band.
- Update payment method. Change your credit card or payment details.
- View invoice history. See past charges and download receipts.
- Cancel your subscription. End your plan at the current billing period.
All billing management happens through Stripe's portal. Song Cage does not have its own billing settings page.
What happens when you cancel
When you cancel, your paid features remain active until the end of your current billing period. After that, your account reverts to the Free tier. No song is ever deleted. Your most recently edited song remains fully editable on Free; older songs become read-only (viewable any time, but editing, playback, and export require resubscribing). Shared songs where you were the owner remain shared; collaborators keep their access.
Payment failures
If a payment fails (expired card, insufficient funds), your subscription status changes to past due. Stripe will retry the charge according to its retry schedule. During this time your paid features remain available. If the charge ultimately fails, the subscription cancels and you revert to Free.
17.7 The user menu
Your account details live in the user menu at the top-right of the toolbar. Click the circular avatar (showing your email initial) to open the menu.
The menu shows:
- Your email address.
- Your current plan (Free, Pro plan, or Band plan).
- Manage subscription (Pro and Band users) or Upgrade to Pro (Free users).
- Sign out.
If you're on a paid plan, a small Pro or Band badge appears next to your avatar in the toolbar, so you can see your tier at a glance without opening the menu.
17.8 Data and sync
Song Cage uses PowerSync for offline-first data sync. Your songs are stored locally in your browser (in a SQLite database) and synced to the cloud in the background. This means:
- You can work offline. Changes save locally and sync when you're back online.
- Your songs follow your account. Sign in on a different device and your songs sync down automatically.
- Sync is automatic. You don't need to save manually or trigger a sync. Changes propagate within a few seconds when you're online.
If you sign out and sign back in on the same device, your local data is still there. Signing in on a new device pulls your songs from the cloud.
17.9 Feature summary by tier
| Feature | Free | Pro | Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-day Pro trial on signup | Yes | — | — |
| Songs preserved (never deleted) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Active editable song | 1 (most recent) | All | All |
| View read-only songs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chord palette, voicings, modulation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Word Tools | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Playback and accompaniment | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audio recording | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDF chord sheet export | Yes | Yes | |
| MIDI export | Yes | Yes | |
| View-only share links | Yes | Yes | |
| Editor share links | Yes | ||
| Email invitations | Yes | ||
| Up to 5 editors per song | Yes | ||
| Manage collaborator roles | Yes |
That covers accounts, tiers, and billing. The next chapter is a reference for every keyboard shortcut in Song Cage, along with settings, input options, and workflow tips.